Michael Scott Hand

Author Archives: Michael

• The Light Beyond

  Posted at 8:20 am by Michael, on March 30, 2022

  

  Posted in Photographs | 0 Comments

• The Man in the Doorway

  Posted at 8:53 am by Michael, on March 21, 2022

  

  Posted in Drawings | 0 Comments

• A Boy’s Nightmare

  Posted at 9:44 am by Michael, on March 18, 2022

  That night I had nightmare about Old Pete and his leg and Papa saying “he’s a damn fool” and being served Old Pete’s steaming hot guts on a plate and Papa standing in the doorway lighting a cigarette, fire blazing white, and Papa saying “he’s a damn fool” and the fading of my yellow and Luce standing on the rocks and the waves crashing against the rocks and the wood breaking against the rocks and the broken bodies of the Raftmakers all strung up along the shore and the sound of the screams of the man stuck by the brambles and Luce sayin’ we’re going in and Papa standing in the doorway turning to me and saying “damn fool” and lighting a cigarette, fire blazing white.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• Blue House

  Posted at 11:06 am by Michael, on March 17, 2022

  

  Posted in Drawings | 0 Comments

• Sometimes I Go There

  Posted at 8:21 am by Michael, on February 23, 2022

  Sometimes she sees me,

  Staring into space,

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  I blink and I’m back. The TV is on. Some jingle is playing.

  Her question makes me wonder and so my thoughts rush back along those neural paths, following the intangible threads of electricity that comprise my consciousness; where was I?

  I know the simple answer, of course: I was in the Ulterkaad.

  Forever I have walked this sullen desert of ashes.

  There is sand beneath my shoes. The sand is grey. The sky above is grey. The clouds are grey. There is no sun or moon in this place, only a diffuse, insipid light that comes from nowhere and casts no shadows.

  I am standing now on a ledge of lumpy black rocks and staring down at the Pit. Sand trickles past my ankles and I know it is not just sand but the microscopic remains of long-dead sea creatures, land creatures, civilisations.

  Where am I?

  The Pit drowns out all questions and all sounds. It is silent and massive and it is consuming the desert. It is consuming everything. I stand on the rocks and I watch the sand pour into the pit.

  I can feel the pull of it, of course, it is an almost magnetic attraction, but the feeling does not concern me. I seem to have enough willpower to resist. But the sand has no willpower. Nor does the dead wood, or the rocks, or the ruins. Eventually, the Pit will claim them all.

  “Where are you?” asks a voice from far away.

  I do not remember accepting the role of the Craedus. In my youth I made many foolish pacts with devils and other powers besides. I cannot possibly remember them all.

  The Craedus is the Last Man in Existence, or, The One Who Watches The End.

  For all the time I have spent in this place, I have discerned one cosmic truth—there must always be an observer.

  No tree ever falls in the forest. But here: everything falls. Everything except me.

  I am standing at the End of Everything and I will watch it.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• City Studies

  Posted at 7:46 am by Michael, on February 8, 2022

  

  Posted in Drawings | 0 Comments

• A New Adventure

  Posted at 9:14 am by Michael, on February 3, 2022

  Note: The first part of this story was posted a month ago in the post Origin Stories. If you want to skip past that bit, click here.

  It has become vogue in this day and age that before telling certain types of story you should first tell the origin story of each character who takes place in the narrative.

  Starting in this way it becomes possible, perhaps, or easier—at least—to comprehend how a character “came to be a way”.

  With this intention in mind, the characters begin somehow deconstructed into unformed lumps of clay or plasticine; lumpish babes in swaddling cloth.

  And from these humble origins the characters become either great heroes, or villains, or sometimes neither, or sometimes both and rise up against adversity or break against it like a boat against rocks.

  The story, in a way, becomes not a story about a thing but a story about a character. And we, the readers, are granted some insight into how that character was formed… how they became.

  This is certainly a valid and sometimes necessary way to tell a story.

  And yet… I wonder, what if we were to do away with that mode and instead chose to begin our story somewhere else. Perhaps right in its very centre, perhaps right at the critical moment at which their decisions begin to become relevant.

  At such a moment of crisis—at that point of that critical mass—might we learn what we need to know about a character in a matter of moments, or seconds, or sentences?

  This too would be an origin story, perhaps, but of a different nature than those which came before. No longer need we know from where exactly our characters came, or how they came to be; we are merely with them.

  And in being with them, might we not come to a more immediate understanding of who that character is, not from the beginning, but a beginning.

  The answer is of course we might start a story this way.

  Continue reading →
  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• Not Yet

  Posted at 8:32 am by Michael, on February 1, 2022

  all we love
  and all we are
  will quickly pass away
  “the void! the void!”
  i shout it out
  they do not shout
  because they are afraid
  “the void! the void!”
  fills up our sky
  our minds
  our hearts
  yet for so long as we exist
  we are a voice against that void
  however ineffectual
  we are something brilliant sparking
  they call it “intellectual”
  but what point is there of being… intellectual
  in a universe like this?
  no rhyme, nor reason, justifies why we exist
  “anomaly! anomaly!”
  that is what humans be
  and most are merely bleating sheep
  who do not wish to see
  and if they saw
  that gaping maw
  they’d scream
  if sheep could scream
  and they would wonder “is there more?”
  beyond this sight unseen?
  “unseen! unseen!”
  within a dream
  lies all that we have lost
  we carry each loss forward
  each one bearing its own cost
  is it PENNIES sir
  or is it POUNDS
  or is it EURO DOLLARS
  are euro dollars even real?
  i think and my rhymes falter,
  what is this life?
  what is it?
  i do not comprehend
  i know not where i started
  and i know not when it will end
  “not yet!” i say
  “NOT YET!” i say
  there’s things yet to be done
  NOT YET becomes my battle cry
  like the beating of a drum
  NOT YET
  NOT YET
  NOT YET
  NOT YET
  i will find a way
  to meet the future that approaches
  and face the passing of each day

  Posted in Poems | 0 Comments

• Hay Una Banda

  Posted at 9:05 am by Michael, on January 31, 2022

  Been messing around with “categories” in order to “get this show on the road”, as it were, although this show is not “on the road” so much as it is “on the internet” which I guess is a sort of road, that is, if one is to consider “the information superhighway” a road.

  Fragments, that is–scattered remnants of the orb-that-was, dashed to pieces by a known hand, sparkling amongst the rocks and dirt, each one a story–have been recategorised as stories as that’s what they are.

  Housekeeping has been rebranded Backstage, because that’s frankly what it’s like back here beyond the veil/beyond the red curtains. There’s props, there’s lights, there’s characters half-out of costume (which also means they’re half-in costume), there’s pulleys and ropes and me, running frantically, delivering coffee (to myself).

  There is, currently, a category for Mind and a category for Lore. These might change as both could, in probability, fall under the purview of Philosophy.

  I have also rebranded Films as Moving Images, because a GIF is not a film (there is intended no absolutism in this statement) and unhidden the category called Sounds, which I hope to expand on considerably in the coming months.

  I have refreshed my About page. Ironically you can probably learn more about me by reading virtually any other page on this website, but if you want to follow me on social media there are links in there.

  That is all for now. I ask all visitors to bear in mind that just because the band has not yet made it to the stage does not mean there is no band. I am, as always, working backstage to create things… somethings… something.

  In this world of scrolling newsfeeds and push notifications, of rapid-fire information and sensory overload, I intend this place to be exactly what it is–a reminder of something simpler, a quietude-containing-a-dynamism.

  When, many years ago, I was the proprietor of an establishment known as The Shrine of Insanity I would sometimes refer to it as an internet backwater, or a “secret swamp”. Herein is perhaps the grandest reveal of all–this is the Shrine of Insanity. Just as a preschool is demolished and replaced by a dry-cleaner, but the longitude and latitude remain the same.

  If you’re here, then you are not lost. In fact, you are found. And this is no swamp, but an oasis.

  Light sparkles on the water.

  Posted in Backstage | 0 Comments

• A Palm Tree

  Posted at 8:18 am by Michael, on January 26, 2022

  

  Posted in Drawings | 0 Comments

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